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big-deku-energy · 4 years

Text

“Good Morning”

So I’ve been curious about the art style change recently. I’m still partially sure it’s just Horikoshi on the ever evolving journey of all artists and I hadn’t read BNHA in two months so maybe it’s sticking out to me more. His art is a bit more angular, the shading not as prominent, things looked a bit emptier, the characters different.

And it all came to a head this chapter.

The incongruity of this scene was so jarring to me. We just come out of the previous chapters where the heroes and select hero students are fighting for their lives versus the noumus and villain liberation army to this weird scene: a quiet, almost “cute” evacuation.

I’ve talked before that I knew there was no way this “evacuation” was going to be clean. The foreshadowing was in the Provisional License exam, any rescue mission in a live setting was inevitably doomed to unseen problems, like, say, a villain attack due to the actual battlefield “A Bit Further Away.” And what a chapter introduction comment that is, I paused when I read it like this is some tongue in cheek shit. How far away is “a bit further” when it comes to war in your home?

So I can talk about sending actual teenagers into a war zone like usual but I’m not. I’m going to talk about Horikoshi’s art.

Like I said just at first, the art style shift was kinda strange to me, both in terms of how he actually drew things but also the contents. I feel like he was going ham on shading the last time I read, some ten or so chapters ago, and further beyond to the real introduction of the Vestiges. And suddenly everything is so clean and angular during this catch up read. Even Shigg’s own AfO vestige vision was clean.

But what caught my eye this chapter was the backgrounds. Just characters standing in emptiness. I mean it’s not that new, we’ve seen in plenty of times before for no reason besides probably time and effort efficiency. But this chapter was especially “empty.”

And that jarring transition is what makes this cumulative reveal so effective.

I’m putting in the full page here because I cannot get over how good it is.

Izuku walking, the only person here with doubts about this evacuation (about him and his other student friends being here, about the heroes, about Heroism), walking alone in an empty street in an empty PANEL, hand over his stomach because he knows something is off but he can’t tell what.

And NOW comes the real shading, over the text bubbles warning that SOMETHING IS COMING, the build up of anticipation.

And then it happens.

The dialogue is sparse to nonexistent. We see the main characters on white backgrounds again, just the characters. Shaded over. We don’t need to see them scream because everything they are feeling right now would be lessened by putting it into words. It’s like that panel (partial face, eyes unseen) of Izuku crying after All Might told him “You’re Next.”

The stage was laid and the story is down. Everything that needed to be said right now was in the making of the art, the form of the speech bubbles, the composition of the contents, the layout of the panel.

And that. Is how you effectively make a comic.

#catch me going fucking WILD over how horikoshi lays out the goddamn panels in this manga #don't get me wrong the words/dialogue/narration in comics are very important #but a small and no less important part is HOW you lay it out #what does the art contribute as well as what does the words say?#this medium NEEDS both and when they do it well look how good it goes #i was rigid with anticipation just looking at the first page #because i have been following this story and the narration #but the art was what alerted me that this was going to get crazy #fuck #this is so self indulgent but its my blog and i can use high school english and art to interpret art iF I WANT #long post #bde live read #manga spoilers #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha 272 #mha 272 #original #boku no hero academia #my hero academia

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soap-brain · 6 years

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You had this headcannon about Paul and shifts and how not being with Hugh would make him snap at his team...Do you think Paul would apologize if he yelled at someone like that to the point of tears?

oh absolutely!! paul is not a mean person at all. he’s snappish and tries to keep them away and probably has a bit of a superiority complex going on where his science is concerned, but he’s not mean.

i think it would mostly be misunderstandings, too. paul knows words can hurt (god, does he know), but he’s got difficulties correlating between that and what he’s saying. so if someone actually cried in front of him because of him being snappish and mean, he’d definitely apologize (and feel super horrible). most of the time the problem is that people are afraid to approach him about that for fear of repercussions. what they don’t know is that paul is a huuuuge softie and genuinely afraid of hurting people.

*cough* and because i can’t stop myself, headcanons about paul’s life under the cut. it got super long and i am so, so sorry :D

i think paul was a rather quiet kid and clearly brilliant from a young age on, but it wasn’t recognized. my personal headcanon is that his mother was dying when he was rather young, so his father was occupied with that and not with paul, and later the grief destroyed him, so paul was left to his own devices. not saying that paul’s parents didn’t love him, but they weren’t able to express it.

i haven’t made up my mind whether he was actually openly bullied or his peers just quietly kept away from him.he was definitely a bookish child though, but, occupied with his wife’s sickness, there was never really a time and place for questions about the universe in the stamets’ household. so paul took to books. kids’ science books and stories alike.that’s never too good a basis to make friends with, since everyone else was outside, playing whatever games you play in kindergarten and elementary school while paul flipped through his books.(also since there was nobody really at home, he quickly learned that going outside in the sun is most likely going to burn him. he was a kid, of course he wasn’t going to think of sunscreen.)

by the time middle school (or secondary school, which i prefer) came around, paul hadn’t exactly learned socialization skills. his mother died around that time, paul’s will to interact with the world outside his little bubble of reading material practically vanished, and his peers went on without him. middle school / the first part of secondary school was probably also the time when paul actually got bullied. not by everyone, and not as horribly as they could’ve bullied him, but there was a definite rift and he learned not to trust other people. he wasn’t stupid - he knew they were ostracizing him for something, but in his world view there was nothing wrong with how he dressed, how he talked, his interests and his ideas of a good time. unfortunately, nobody else agreed.puberty happened and paul decided that shit got too weird for him, so he stuck his nose farther down the books while his classmates were well on their way to becoming bratty teenagers.around that time paul’s interests cross-sectioned with school topics for the first time, and when a teacher, already weary and afraid of even more burgeoning teenagers to deal with, told the class a wrong fact about something. and paul, with a sudden burst of courage, put his hand up and corrected the teacher.now there were two problems in that: one, paul had never exactly learned how to tell someone they’re wrong about something, so it came out rather aloof. two, the teacher was absolutely not about to be lectured by some kid. so paul got detention and a few weeks worth of teasing from his classmates. he really should’ve kept his mouth shut, but he was in the rebellious phase of his early teenagerhood, and a wrong was being done (because frankly, the teacher got a lot of their facts wrong), so he went straight to the principal and complained. that got him nothing but a parent-teacher conference where he was branded as “troubled” and “has problems keeping up with the workload” (he didn’t. his grades were bad because he wasn’t interested, so naturally he struggled with learning for school), and that got him a talk with his father about how paul should never be afraid to come to him and tell him something. paul said yes and nodded and agreed, because that got him out of those talks before, and school got him into smaller courses that went through the topic more slowly and more thoroughly.so paul spent the majority of his teenage years in school, staring out the windows while the teachers talked and explained and were ever-so-patient with all the “lesser gifted” students that stayed late every day.

and then, year ten happened and the whole year went to a bio-engineering research laboratory on a field trip.paul was... angry, at that time. at himself for still not achieving those grades he secretly wanted (if only to get out of those classes for “stupid kids”); at his peers for not liking him; at his father and all other authority figures for not understanding him; at the entire world for not bending to his will. that anger manifested itself in being the only one asking a question after the lead scientist had finished her presentation.he expected to get a vague answer and be brushed off. instead he got a “that’s a very smart question to ask!” and a full ten minute explanation that was directed at him, like he was someone to be taken serious.he managed to sidle up next to the scientist on their tour through the labs and kept asking, because he was hooked on being taken seriously. and he got serious answers every time.

somehow, that sparked something, and within the same half year, his grades improved enough that he was put into regular classes again. by the end of the year his teachers started thinking of letting him skip a year; by the end of year eleven he skipped right into year thirteen.

that doesn’t mean he magically got along with his peers. if anything, it got worse, because paul had never learned how to not be a smartass. but he was finally good at something, he’d finally found something he enjoyed (namely: being the smartest person in the room. also sciences), so he absolutely didn’t care.(being set up horribly on valentine’s day didn’t register for too long at that time. it came back later though)

he graduated second best of his year; when it turned out he was going to have to hold a speech, too, and when it turned out that his father wasn’t going to be able to attend the ceremony, he faked being sick and skipped out of it (also, a triple feature of marvels of the solar systems was coming out that day, and really, school can’t even begin to compare to his favorite show).

he applied to just about every college he could think about, afraid that his grades weren’t good enough after all. he also didn’t know what he wanted to study at all - languages? history? sciences? humanities?, just that he wanted to get away from his absent father and the town he grew up in.he got accepted to every. single. college and then had to begrudgingly make a trip to an advisor to get help with what on earth he’s supposed to do with that.due to a small miracle, the advisor was sick and he ended up talking to an advisor for phd programs during their coffee break, who, after listening to paul ranting about science, advised him to definitely go in that direction and which school to choose.

so, with his mind made up and set on a degree in astromechanical chemistry, he got a shuttle ticket and walked to his chosen school’s registration office.it was sheer luck that he was an hour early and had to spend some time in the cafeteria, where he ended up butting into two professors’ fight about whether, on a molecular level, physics, chemistry and biology were all the same. paul asked a question, and once again, he was talked to like an adult, and after one of them had made a derogatory remark about mycelial studies in regards to the overall composition of the universe, paul found himself going into astrobiology with a minor in particle physics and an oddly strong interest in mycelial studies.

he moved to college and was the asshole who’d read every single book by the time the semester started. his professors quickly caught on and redirected him to more works, seminars and conferences to attend. paul didn’t even realize that he was practically not socializing at all until the first year was over and he was glowing with knowledge. most people went home, there were parties and get-togethers and people having fun all around him, and no classes to attend. paul experienced a real life record scratch.so he tentatively started trying out social interaction, which for the most part went almost okay.he fell in love and had his heart broken almost instantly, so he withdrew again and buried himself in studies, because human interactions are scary.year two rolled around and he was still as studious as ever, but then someone invited him to a party (actually went up to him and asked him to come. he needed to lie down after that), and he went and actually kind of enjoyed himself.that’s when he met straal for the first time and they hit right off.that’s also when he saw his crush of that summer again, but this time with his friends and there were so many other cute guys, and paul came back from that party with a tentative friendship with straal and the sudden realization that he liked guys.that part he got over pretty quickly, but it took him a while to get used to having a friend.

college kept happening and he and straal got closer and closer. paul got kissed by a girl and decided that hey, maybe he likes girls? so he had a girlfriend for a while, lost his virginity and found out that no, she’d tried to get better grades by being associated with him, so he went back to hiding in his sciences. a string of mostly boyfriends later and straal smacked him upside the head for falling for every single guy who ever crossed his path, especially since most of them were rather transparent about what they wanted - either the status of being in a relationship, or they hoped to get some of paul’s brains that way.so paul went over to casual sex with whatever gender was available.

he and straal went on to university together, focusing their studies on mushrooms and astrophysics, and got funded pretty much instantly.

later on, funding was difficult on occasion; they eventually divided themselves between earth (straal) and alpha centauri (paul) to cover more ground.paul was a little lonely again on alpha centauri, which he didn’t like much, now that he had a friend (who was never only paul’s friend - straal was much more sociable than paul).and then he was just snacking and having a coffee in that café, reading some reports, and there was hugh, and the rest is, as they say, history.

(hugh managed to sweep paul off his feet so completely that he was absolutely useless for several days after their first couple dates. they moved in together after about two years, and a few months later paul’s and straal’s starfleet funding got approved in the most spectacular way, ie they were granted two research vessels, which were then constructed after precise orders from paul and straal, still holding the record for quickest construction. hugh, who had been working at the starfleet medical center on alpha centauri, saw not only a chance to stay with paul while also finally getting deployed like he’d been wishing for for a while, but also a chance to further his career, and immediately put in his application. he’s got aspirations for CMO anyways, and he was practically promised the position when their current CMO goes into retirement after this rotation. paul is both excited for and proud of his hardworking boyfriend, and the feeling is mutual. also, since jumping the discovery and hugh’s temporary death, you can BET paul is 800% more soft around his team. he learned a lot, about himself and about humans in general.)

so this got super long! if you read this far, you totally deserve a cookie :D but yeah there we goes, this is my backstory to paul.

#lksjdlfksdjf this got SO LONG i am SO SORRY #stamets #discovery #anonymous #ask #answered

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